Liviu Dragan, General Manager of TotalSoft and President of the National Association of the Software Industry (ANIS), said that the reduction of the software and service market by almost one quarter in the first six months, due to the reluctance of companies to invest in IT, will lead to players focusing more on productivity to maintain their profits at the levels registered in previous years.
“In past years, the value of projects was rather high compared to what was being delivered, and the profit of software and service companies was also high. Now, things are repositioning, and while company renown and perhaps implementation speed were important before, now there is the issue of productivity, because companies in the real economy will be much more reserved about spending. And then you will have to propose projects that are very financially viable,” Dragan told Business Standard.
He added that, in order for Romania to remain an attractive market in terms of software production, the country must maintain costs at some €25 per hour in this field.
“We can obtain this cost by raising productivity, which was not necessary as long at the market was growing by 20 percent and one knew that the most important thing was not increasing productivity but holding on to one’s resources. Now, the resources do not want to leave and the employer must raise productivity,” the official added.
